The Marketing Game

Thanks to my recent encounters with several scam artists I have begun to take my marketing more seriously. Yes, I have. Those wankers always spur me on to bigger and better, they don’t mean to, but that’s the end result just the same.

I’ve been doing this and that on TikTok and Instagram and all the happy-crappy, which is what most “small” people like me have to do. Once Upon a Time, someone like ME couldn’t touch advertising for less than $500 and that was considered a bargain. Honestly, I once had a legitimate place contact me wanting me to place an ad with them…..a thousand dollars! For one single, one time only, ad. I told the guy that whenever I wanted to risk the next mortgage payment I’d let him know.

It was a big rip off.

Now it’s a small rip off. That’s because the people who own those places where people like me might advertise our books or other wares finally realized they make MORE money by charging LESS. That’s right. More of us will ‘get in on it’ if we can actually afford it and it’s way better to have 10 people sign up at $100/head than it is to have 1 person, here and there, fork over the same $1000.

So, in my travels of late I have encountered several places that a few years ago I could never afford even 1 day of advertising on! Places like BookBub which used to want to charge me several hundred dollars are now much more flexible. I can set my campaign dates and CPC (cost per click) now and any budget is just fine! Even the $50 I may hand over to them. My ad is in draft form and I’m considering running it fairly wide.

What can I say? If any book of mine should survive me, I really want it to be this one. Yet, I’d like to still be alive when that happens and get my Stan Lee Moment. That’s not too much, is it? How about a Netflix or HBO movie? Is that too much?

Oh well, like Rod Stewart said; Never give up on your dreams.

Between August 4th and August 15th you may see a lot of “The Heart of War” book cover on FB, Instagram, Amazon, Book Cave, and possibly BookBub. I plan to make people sick of me during those 11 days when the entire Of War series will be $0.99 each on ALL channels. But we all know that Bezos has the biggest channel so I’m really pushing the Kindle copies.

I have spent-$54.00 on the Book Cave ad for the entire series and it will run those 11 days. Why Book Cave? I don’t really know other than to say it’s the place I’ve been the most active over the years when it comes to sites like this.

Another $50 went to Meta for ads on FB and Instagram during that time. Should YOU see those ads, I’d appreciate it if you’d give them a ‘like’ a ‘love’ or a few words of encouragement for others to buy the book. Please?

I am now torn between Amazon and BookBub. I’d try GoodReads but that site is such a friggin’ mess! I don’t even know if many people use it anymore it’s gotten so hard to follow.

Basically I’ve got about another $50 to toss at one more site. I could eek out a tiny bit more but, I’m a Libra and I love symmetry, so… $50 for everyone! (give or take)

I’d really love to do an old fashioned blog tour with interviews and silly questions and giveaways, where people leave comments and we can converse, and all that fun stuff. But I only know of 1 truly legitimate person who still does this and I probably can’t get in with her in time. Most of them have fallen by the wayside.

TikTok? I don’t know. Anyone have any thoughts on that?

Oh, wait, my ad. I almost forgot.

Well? What do you think? I love the splash of sunset color. I should put the logos for the ebook retailers on it I suppose.

No, that won’t get used on Amazon (if they get my last $50) or Book Cave, I made it for BookBub and am using it for my ads on Meta but I still have time to change it around there. Suggestions are welcome. I need to sell some books here.

Face it, I’ve spent $104 already on this. Each book in the Of War Series (there are 6) will be $0.99. Of that I make $0.35. So, I need to sell about 300 books to break even on this. I’d really love it if I could get 50 people to buy all six books.